Cassandra in Reverse: A Reese’s Book Club Pick
Holly Smale
368 pages
Mira Books
published June 6, 2023
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About the book
If you had the power to change the past, where would you start?
Cassandra Penelope Dankworth likes what she likes, and strongly dislikes what she doesn’t. Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until all these things happen on the same day.
- She gets dumped.
- She gets fired from her PR job for not being a ‘People Person’
- Her local café runs out of her favorite muffins
Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can travel back in time and change the past.
She decides to use this newfound ability to change all the broken parts of her life. Get undumped, unfired. And with time on her side, how hard can it be?
My Review
This is a quirky story that reminds me a little in tone to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. But note the story is nothing alike. Cassandra is on the spectrum and has trouble relating to people. She’s at a crossroads as she has lost her job, broken up with her boyfriend and is losing her place to live, when she realizes she can go back a little in time to try and remedy things. A lot of the book is her tinkering with her timeline. At times she has no idea she’s gone back in time and there is a little humor as she tries to figure out where she is.
While she does keep going back and trying to fix things, it is really more character driven and about her growth, figuring out who she is, and reaching her potential. Cassandra annoyed me at times but was mostly endearing. She quite is unique and different from any character in a book you’re reading right now. I am such a fan of second chances and Cassandra gets many chances to get things better or right.
There isn’t a huge twist in this one, but there are small ones as Cassandra deals with the fallouts from her time travel and she see what consequences there are for her tweaks to her life. I really rooted for her as life is slightly more difficult for her than others and I wanted to see her succeed. You’ll never guess where this one is ultimately going and it won’t matter as you grow to love and root for her.
I think this could be the feel good book of the summer. It is quirky and fun and I can see why this was Reese’s book club choice.
About the author
Holly Smale is the internationally bestselling, award-winning author of the Geek Girl (soon to be a Netflix series) and The Valentines teen series, which have sold 3.4 million copies worldwide. In January 2021, Holly was diagnosed autistic at the age of 39. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. Holly regularly shares, debates about, and celebrates neurodiversity on Twitter and Instagram @holsmale. Cassandra in Reverse is her adult debut and was named A Reese’s Book Club Pick, an Amazon Editors’ Top Pick of the Month, and a June Must Listen on Apple.
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